# 4

# DBT

Here we are on the last piece of the ‘why’. Why blog. Why throw up content on a Facebook Page and a YouTube channel. Why host a store on Teacher Pay Teacher. Why online courses. Why?

It all began with a desire for effective outcomes. What were the skills that resulted in new ways of experiencing Big Feelings. Big Feelings is a term I began using as my ‘job’ transitioned to elementary school. I use the term Big Feelings to describe the feelings that show up uninvited, and are in no hurry to leave. So it began with the desire to teach skills that got sustainable results, and I realized that life was the answer. I was doing so many suicide assessments, and the irony was that I was not alive myself. I was not present. Happy. Satisfied. Big Feelings were in charge of me, and had been for a long time. If I could figure out the skills, apply them to my own situation, and get lasting results - then I had the answer. I would know what skills work, and transfer the teachings to the students.

Here is the rest of the story.

Once I seemed to have the strategy figured out, I decided to start with Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). The skills I was looking for must exist inside DBT - this seemed to be what the students were being ‘prescribed’ when they were seen medically for self harm and suicidal behaviors.

If I am recalling correctly, I googled ‘DBT’ in my office, in an urgent state of mind (‘this must happen now!’) and I wrote down the skills. These would be the skills I focus on. I still may have the little piece of ripped off notebook paper that I scribbled the skills on. Honestly, I don’t remember the exact language of the skill sets that make up DBT because my story resonates with the one skill that was completely unknown to me at the time - mindfulness.

I jotted down the 4 skills, and decided to focus on the skills that made sense (skills such as anxiety reduction, conflict resolution, social skill building…skills like that).

That summer was a breaking point for crazy. I hated my job. I hated where I lived. I hated the boy I had been in a relationship with for about a year and a half. I say I hated those things - I hated me. I hated my patterns. I hated that I couldn’t get it together. I hated that I had a longing for something more and I had no clue what it was. I moved out of my place, and put my belongings in storage. Sent the boy a text to say I needed a break (yes I texted as a preemptive move because I was so emotional). That was that. I didn’t quit my job - I wanted to (that lasted one more school year). I stayed in a coworker’s family cabin in Breckenridge with my dog for all of June and July.

When I drove up the mountain and was driving into town, I stopped at the library. The summer was going to be meaningful. I was going to change. At the library, they had books for sale. Mindfulness. Wait…what? That word. Mindfulness. Of course I bought the book. To be honest, the book was really uneventful that summer. It was too simple. The language was written for a first grader. A Vietnemese monk wrote the book and it was translated into English. I figured something must have been lost in translation.

Thich Nhat Han.

Mindfulness.

Simple.

The practice changed my life. I wish I could tell you it all happened that summer. I was certain that it did. That I was forever changed, and moving forward would be done in a perpetual state of bliss. I did change. Oh did I change. I am so appreciative that I had that summer to get away and experience the time in the backdrop of so much beauty.

The turning of 40 and the Breckenridge summer is the timestamp I use to suggest the significance of my turning point. Anyone that has life changing experiences (I think) can look back and realize that it wasn’t just the event, situation, or circumstance. Sure, there was something that finally got your attention. It’s all of it. All the moving parts and pieces - and it continues to move. The desire for something more, and the experience that finally brings you back to you.

I get it. My personal ‘big events’ don’t seem too tragic or too traumatic. And at this point, I have learned how to tell a different story. The story I want to tell. A story that is grounded in possibility. So unless I need to share something in a way that contributes to the point I’m trying to make - I’m not going to focus on the suffering. Yes, I did move toward the suffering. Yes, I made peace with the suffering. The healing is in the flow of possibility. To shift, or to pivot away, from what you don’t want into the feeling state of what you do want.

And again, anyone who has had to meet suffering by choice or by force, I think they will tell you that when it gets to that point - the desired outcome is no longer something that is tangible. It’s not something that can be quantified, not something that can be boxed up and shipped. It’s a feeling. In my case, nothing else mattered outside of the inside feeling of freedom.

At the low point, I really believed that I could handle ANYTHING if I could just feel free inside. If I was free inside, I could manage anything external.

So that’s the why. That’s the story behind my project.

Day.

Simple and transferable skills, tools, and strategies to grow wellbeing.

Ordinary day…extraordinary way.

Now THIS is me.